


Hazard (Out Of This Town)

by Eliyes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e12 Lunar Ellipse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:16:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles could hear Derek breathing in his ear. </p><p>"You want me to to leave," Derek said carefully, not quite a question.</p><p>"I'm not running you out of town, here, I just -- it might be the smart thing."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hazard (Out Of This Town)

**Author's Note:**

> I keep seeing fic where Stiles is angry that Derek left. This is the opposite of that.

"Hey, are you okay?" Stiles began.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Derek answered after a pause. Stiles wished they weren't having this conversation over the phone; Derek was always easier to talk to in person. Maybe because he was so expressive with his face and body language. Maybe he just engaged more when he could smell people and check their heartbeats for lies or whatever. It didn't matter; neither Stiles nor his dad were willing to be parted right now, so the phone it was.

He bit his lip. "What about Cora?"

"Cora's just fine," Derek replied instantly, voice warm with relief, and Stiles' breath whooshed out of him. His dad poked his head in from the kitchen and Stiles gave him a thumbs up.

"Good. That's good. Uh, how? I mean --"

"I healed her."

"Whoa. Cool. Is that, like, an Alpha upgrade on the whole pain-drain thing?"

(If Scott could magically heal people now, he would probably freak out from joy.)

"No, not exactly." Derek palpably hesitated, but Stiles just made a curious noise and he forged on with, "I used my power as Alpha to heal her, but it -- I'm a beta now. Again."

"Holy shit," Stiles breathed. "Derek, that's _amazing!_ " He started pacing, and gestured with his free hand even though Derek couldn't see him. "That's -- _really_ amazing." Although with it being possible, Stiles wasn't surprised Derek had found a way to do it. He was, Stiles had come to realise, kind of ridiculously self-sacrificing. He just didn't like people to know that.

And speaking of things Derek didn't like people to know...

"Listen, I owe you an apology. I'm sorry I aired your dirty laundry, back at the hospital. It was uncalled for and, and I shouldn't have said that, okay, I knew it was a low blow and just, no excuses. I'm sorry."

There was another pause, which Stiles chose to characterise as 'stunned' or maybe just taking a moment to process, with how fast he'd probably been talking, then --

"Forget about it," Derek said. Stiles made a frustrated noise and pressed his clenched fist to his forehead.

"If I forget my mistakes, I won't learn from them."

"Then I forgive you," Derek replied, calm and oddly almost fond, like he was humouring him.

"You do," Stiles said, freezing in his tracks. He couldn't have heard that right. "You don't have to."

"I do anyway."

"You -- okay. Thanks, I think? I'm not sure what to say to forgiveness."

Derek just snorted, which was no help at all on the etiquette front. and jibed, "You got anything else to check off your list of conversational topics?"

"Yeah, actually." So he had a mental list of things to talk to Derek about in this call, so what? He liked lists; they helped him focus his thoughts, kept him on task. Between all the stress lately -- seriously, just, _all_ the stress, _all of it_ \-- and Derek's natural ability to be distracting, the list was the only thing that kept him from going off in a tangent about downshifting to beta and what that meant for interwerewolf relations. He embraced the mental list.

"Stiles," Derek said pointedly, and huh, maybe he shouldn't think about his focusing methods while trying to use them.

"Uh, maybe Scott has already mentioned this to you, but the nemeton is acting as a super-beacon now. Not just for supernatural beings, but apparently especially for evil ones? So we expect to be hip deep in trouble pretty soon, not to mention hunters."

No response from Derek. Stiles stuck the cell phone between his ear and shoulder so he could wring his hands, popping three knuckles.

"Look, this place has been pretty toxic for you. It's about the get worse. I don't think anyone could blame you for deciding to get out of the path of an oncoming avalanche, dude."

He could hear Derek breathing in his ear. 

"You want me to to leave," Derek said carefully, not quite a question.

"I'm not running you out of town, here, I just -- it might be the smart thing. Isn't that always what you're telling _me?_ 'Run, Stiles', 'get out of here', ' _go_ , Stiles'."

"And are you?" Derek asked. "Running?"

"I can't." His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, hoping to pass it off as an artifact of late puberty. Now was not the time to air his suspicions about just how literally he and Scott and Allison were now tied to the nemeton.

"I can't," Stiles repeated, stronger. "The three of us, _we_ did this. It's our fault, so we have to deal with the consequences."

Derek huffed a breath, closer to a sigh than a laugh. Stiles figured if anyone would get that, it was him. And also his dad, who was back in the doorway again, this time leaning there with his arms crossed. Stiles met his eyes.

"Plus, my dad is here, and I'm not leaving him."

"I won't leave Cora."

" _Obviously_ ," Stiles responded, affronted that Derek could think he meant that. "She's your family, you just nearly lost her. Take her with you. She doesn't seem to much like it here anyway. Hell, take Peter -- if he gets called back, you'll know for sure where he stands on the whole Good/Evil thing."

Derek snorted and probably rolled his eyes, and Stiles rolled his eyes, too, grabbing the phone in his hand again and gesturing with the other.

"Look, this isn't -- I'm not trying to exert my will over a beta because I'm an alpha's best friend, if that's even a thing, which my experience so far says it isn't. Even if I _had_ the authority to tell you to go, I wouldn't. This is your choice to make. I just -- I'm only reminding you of your options."

Stiles stopped talking, and waited. He half-expected Derek to hang up on him. He opened his mouth to thank him for believing him about Miss Blake knowing where his dad was, which he belatedly realised he should have said after the apology, but closed it without speaking.

He listened to Derek breathe, and breathed in time with him, and waited.

"She'd be safer," Derek eventually said, soft and quiet.

"You both would," Stiles agreed, closing his eyes. He swiped at them. When his dad said that dinner was ready and left, he was grateful for the privacy -- and, guiltily, for the out.

"I gotta go." Stiles cleared his throat again, trying not to sniff too obviously. "...Take care."

Derek hesitated a beat, and then said, "Good luck."

Stiles bit his lip again and nodded, even as his phone beeped with the ending of the call. He tried to breathe through the urge to cry. He wasn't going to cry -- not yet. If it was true that tears released proteins that built up in the body because of stress, he probably _should_ cry sometime soon, but now was _not_ the time. Not with his dad, alive and whole and concerned, waiting in the next room with dinner.

Anyway, wasn't this what he wanted?

Stiles gripped the phone tightly and whispered, " _Run_ , Derek."


End file.
